List of Famous people who died in 2015

Saeed Jaffrey was a British-Indian actor. His career covered radio, stage, television and film roles over six decades and more than a hundred and fifty British, American, and Indian movies. During the 1980s and 1990s he was considered to be Britain's highest-profile Asian actor, thanks to his leading roles in the movie My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and television series The Jewel in the Crown (1984), Tandoori Nights (1985–1987) and Little Napoleons (1994). He played an instrumental part in bringing together film makers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and acted in several of their Merchant Ivory Productions films such as The Guru (1969), Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978), The Courtesans of Bombay (1983) and The Deceivers (1988).

Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya was a Soviet ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress. In post-Soviet times, she held both Lithuanian and Spanish citizenship. She danced during the Soviet era at the Bolshoi Theatre under the directorships of Leonid Lavrovsky, then of Yury Grigorovich; later she moved into direct confrontation with him. In 1960 when Galina Ulanova, another famed Russian ballerina retired, Plisetskaya became prima ballerina assoluta of the company.

Stephen John Harrington, better known by his stage name Steve Strange, was a Welsh pop singer. From the late 1970s he was a nightclub host and promoter. He became famous as the leader of the new wave synth-pop group Visage, best known for their single "Fade to Grey", and was one of the most influential figures behind the New Romantic movement of the early 1980s.

José María Ruiz–Mateos y Jiménez de Tejada was a Spanish businessman and politician.

Mieko Matsuki , better known by her stage name Miyu Matsuki , was a Japanese voice actress and singer from Kure, Hiroshima, best known for her work in anime. She was affiliated with 81 Produce at the time of her death.

Horace Julian Bond was an American social activist, leader of the civil rights movement, politician, professor, and writer. While he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, during the early 1960s, he helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1971, he helped found the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, and served as its first president for nearly a decade.

Salvatore "Robert" Loggia was an American actor and director. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Jagged Edge (1985) and won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for Big (1988).

Frances Kathleen Oldham Kelsey, CM was a Canadian-American pharmacologist and physician. As a reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), she refused to authorize thalidomide for market because she had concerns about the lack of evidence regarding the drug's safety. Her concerns proved to be justified when it was shown that thalidomide caused serious birth defects. Kelsey's career intersected with the passage of laws strengthening FDA oversight of pharmaceuticals. Kelsey was the second woman to receive the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, awarded to her by John F. Kennedy in 1962.

Kurt Masur was a German conductor. Called "one of the last old-style maestros", he directed many of the principal orchestras of his era. He had a long career as the Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and also served as music director of the New York Philharmonic. He left many recordings of classical music played by major orchestras. Masur is also remembered for his actions to support peaceful demonstrations in the 1989 anti-government demonstrations in Leipzig; the protests were part of the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin wall.

Saud bin Faisal Al Saud, also known as Saud Al Faisal, was a Saudi Arabian statesman and diplomat who served as the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia from 1975 to 2015. A member of the Saudi royal family, he was the longest-serving foreign minister in world history.